How I ended up fighting Gus Hansen

Somehow I seem to be sucked in to different kinds of--more or less--insane bets. Okay, at times everything--or most of it--is well thought through. Other times I get sucked in. And then there's the times where it's just plain stupidity taking charge.

The boxing bet with Gus Hansen back in 2009 was something I definitely could have gotten out of before it got too serious. Now, after we first started talking about it, I kinda liked the idea for different reasons.

It all started with me losing a squash game where he had spotted me six points, and since we were playing to nine, you can do figure out how much success I had in that game. Now, since I introduced the dude to this great game, and I started off spotting him eight points eight months prior to this, you can imagine what kinda of mood I was in afterward when he started shadow boxing right in front of me.

My response was "Well, in that particular sport, I'm sure we can figure something out."

He looked so extremely stupid doing it. While he thought about what I said, my brain wandered off. Lets' just say I hadn't really thought it through.

I wanted get into shape, since I'd gained at least ten (read: 16) pounds. I'd just learned that boxing should be a great exercise. A couple of my friends had the best boxing trainer in Denmark training them once a week and spoke very highly of it.

I had no chance in hell that day considering the fact that Gus--for the past 20 years--had always been in a freaking fantastic shape, but let's say I kept the bet high enough to keep me motivated, and at the same time low enough for him not to be motivated. This had a chance to work out.

I thought, "Yeah I might lose since I'm fighting one of those dudes from the movie 300." But I really felt I had a talent like Mayweather that no one had ever found out about. And, if that wasn't the case, I would still lose the ten pounds (again, read 16 pounds), and that would be worth it alone if we kept the bet "low."

All this happened in my head while swearing at him walking to the showers. So, when we made the bet in the locker room, the bet was as thought-through as I am capable of achieving.

Here were the terms:

We would box three rounds of three minutes. It would happen seven months from the day of the squash match. If I won, I would win $35,000. If I lost, I would have to pay only $25,000, considering the fact that, again, I was fighting a dude from 300. The next day I went down to Mister Poul Duvill, Brian Nielsen's old trainer.

Nielsen is the guy who fought Mike Tyson in Denmark years ago. He lost, but I felt like still giving his coach a chance. From there on, I trained pretty much three times a week, and we very quickly established the fact that Mayweather shouldn't worry too much. It took me six weeks to learn to "hit straight" as they called it. To this day I'm convinced that I am the guy with the least boxing talent there has ever been in the ring for a serious fight.

Well, Gus aside, of course.

I ended up forgetting 95% of everything I was taught when we had the fight. I won--barely-- by 2-1 in the referees' decision. Gus started training 5-6 weeks before the fight, so it wasn't the worst idea keeping the bet pretty low. I got the feeling I might have lost it if he would have trained seven months.

I was happy to win, but looking back, that was always a bet I could've found a way to escape. Next week, I'll give you a look inside a bet that was impossible to get out of.